On 12/28/2014 5:29 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:08:49 -0800, mike wrote:

On 12/28/2014 1:18 PM, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2014 22:26:29 -0800, mike wrote:

On 12/27/2014 9:44 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2014 02:08:54 -0800, "Howard Beal"
wrote:


"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

We'll see what happens. My guess is, like what happened in the 1930s,
the people of the United States are not going to let their lives be
ruined because free-market theorists think they're economic market
objects to be "cleared." It's not a settling thought.

Ed Huntress

Seems there is already a big push in many states to implement right
to work legislation, now that repbulicans have control in washington
i believe they will try to revise federal labor laws to benifit the job
creators. Depending on who becomes president in 2016 things could
get much worse for labor. Iggy is correct technology will replace
much of the unskilled labor we use today. For example in near future
people that depend on driving for thier income will become obsolete,
same thing will happen with the airline industry, pilotless planes are in
our future. If AI ever becomes a reality the entire global ecconomy
will change, even ecconomists will be unemployed. G

Best Regards
Tom.

Iggy is right about the direction in which things are going, absent
any policy changes. But I doubt if the American people are going to
ride that technology- and ideology-driven death train all the way to
the bottom.

There will be a populist revolt -- a political one, not a violent one.

I wouldn't count on that. Those "above the line" have no incentive to
help those below the line. It's easy to
picket for equality when it's funded by someone else.
Even the do-gooders run out of steam when
their desire to help others costs them personally.
Would you pay 20% more for the same goods manufactured in America?

Lots of people do. But it's not just 20%. Newp, I see many, many
American-made goods at twice the price of imports.

I can get a dozen import LED bulbs for the price of one American-made
bulb, and the American-made doesn't have the added features of the
import. I'll be replacing my import 75W and 100W incandescent bulbs
(which the US doesn't even make any more, and is phasing out) in my
outdoor fixtures with import 15W LEDs. Most of my indoor lightingis
already CFL and LED. I've had nothing but trouble from the FEIT brand
CFLs, and it's a US company. I bought a dozen Chinese ULA CFLs in
2004 and 7 are still running. Chinese SATCO CFLs have outlasted all my
Feits, too, and they're half the price from local sellers. I have
dozens of other examples to soothe my "import buying" guilt.


We know we should, but we're standing in line at WalMart on sale day.
Not too long from now, we'll be standing in line at the soup kitchen.

Hey, WalMart happens to be the largest employer in the USA, behind the
gov't.
http://corporate.walmart.com/global-...-manufacturing
"According to data from our suppliers, items that are made, sourced or
grown right here in America already account for about two-thirds of
what we spend to buy products at Walmart U.S. But there is room to do
more."
That's good news, but contrary to what you read on the web.

http://www.demos.org/publication/not...facturing-jobs

The whole article is worth a read. It's on the internet, so it must
be true...

1. Buying billions of goods that weren’t made in America.

The vast majority of merchandise Walmart sells in the U.S. is
manufactured abroad. The company searches the world for the cheapest
goods possible, and this usually means buying from low-wage factories
overseas. Walmart boasts of direct relationships with nearly 20,000
Chinese suppliers,[iv] and purchased $27 billion worth of Chinese-made
goods in 2006.[v] According to the Economic Policy Institute, Walmart’s
trade with China alone eliminated 133,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs
between 2001 and 2006 and accounted for 11.2 percent of the nation’s
total job loss due to trade.[vi] But China is hardly the only source of
Walmart goods: the company also imports from Bangladesh, Honduras,
Cambodia, and a host of other countries.


Those below the line have no clout other than violence.

Not true. Boycotting can work, too. That's non-violent.

How does that work? If you can't afford
the foreign stuff, what are you gonna boycott? And what will you
buy instead with the money you don't have?

The concept that Chinese goods are inherently cheap junk is silly. the
Chinese are as capable of producing good stuff if required.

Never implied otherwise.
There's no reason that the Chinese can't make stuff as good as
anybody else.

There are two pieces to this puzzle.
First it's the American consumer.
I want low cost stuff.
When I have my thinking cap on, I consciously buy Harbor Frieght
tools because they're the cheapest around and will likely last as long
as I'll need to use them. For something I will use a lot, I avoid HF
like the plague. Used to be that you could go to Sears and be
guaranteed quality. Today, you're likely to get the same junk
as you'd get from Harbor Freight.

My problem is that I sometimes misplace my thinking cap.
I've been known to spend $3 on gas to get to a store where I can
save $2 on an inferior item. It's logically inconsistent,
but much buyer behavior is illogical.

My egg frying experience improved dramatically when I bit the bullet
and bought a $12 spatula instead of the 99-cent ones. Whoodathunkit?
Only took me 60 years to figger that out.

The second piece of the puzzle is that there are places in the world
where working long hours for low wages is far superior to the alternative.
American workers won't. They've got the "dole" to fall back on and
it's better to do that than to work for low wages. Third-world
workers are glad to have the jobs we don't want. It's not anybody's
fault but ours.

All WalMart does is put the buyers and sellers together.
Buyers want cheap. WalMart gives it to us.
Boycotting Chinese junk doesn't help anybody. Nobody's gonna
start up an American factory to build flashlights that Harbor Freight
will put in your hands for free. Even if you buy a "quality"
flashlight, it's likely made elsewhere.

The same thing happens with quality goods. If the Chinese will
make 'em at lower delivered cost, who's gonna get the build contract?
As long as our tax, import tariff and foreign/domestic economic
policies don't change, we're gonna continue to export jobs.
And you can't fix that because any effective change would precipitate
trade policy retaliation that would being the whole system to its
knees in a heartbeat.

Boycotting works when the boycotting inflicts pain on the supplier
AND you have alternatives AND they have the means to meet your
demands. You DON'T. They DON'T.
Putting a Chinese flashlight manufacturer out of business,
even with the arrogant assumption that we could do that, doesn't
help anybody unless some American factory springs up to supply
the demand at a price we'll pay. American workers won't stand
for the wages and conditions required to make that happen.
It's more likely that we'd attract yet more illegal immigrants
and make the problem worse.

The thing that upsets me is that there's nothing I can do.
Even if the fairy godmother waived her wand, eliminated
the grid-locked thing we call congress and gave the reigns
to the best economists, there ain't much they can do.
In the world of instant communication and container ships,
isolationism is unattainable. That ship has sailed...probably
the same one that brought you tennis shoes and computer tablets
from some sweatshop abroad.
If you can't do that, you're
stuck with the inevitable equalization of the world
standard of living. The American standard of excess
is not sustainable...except among one-percenters.
And those guys hold the reigns.

I haven't worked in almost 20 years, but I'm watching my friends
get downsized and the remaining crew becoming more and more like
the sweatshops of the third world as almost every manufacturing
function gets offshored.

Would you vote for significant price increases to have more
production return to the states? The "haves" won't.
And the "have nots" don't have the clout or the money to buy 'em.
And the main result
would be higher prices and profits for the Chinese vendors.

If WalMart ceased to exist, the overall American standard of living
would decrease. We'd be able to afford less stuff.

It's not anybody's fault.
It's an economic reality that can't be fixed.
Bend over and kiss your sweet ass goodbye.


Chinese art, for example, is well into the top end of the art market
with 1st, 2nd and 6th place in the top prices paid in 2011.

Cummins Diesel started producing some of their smaller 6 cylinder
engines in China in 1995 and produce engines that are as good as any
that they build anywhere. They also have a factory in India a country
not noted for excellency either :-)

The Walmart example above is largely at fault for the concept that all
Chinese goods are shoddy - "The company searches the world for the
cheapest goods possible". If your overwhelming requirement is "Cheap"
then it is highly unlikely that you will be purchasing "quality".